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Globalization, Human Rights & Security

Women make up a majority of the world’s poor; more than half of immigrants, refugees and casualties of armed conflicts; and they are often the first to feel the brunt of economic, political, environmental and humanitarian crises. At the same time, women are essential partners for promoting conflict resolution, reducing extremism and promoting post-conflict reconstruction and sustainable development. However, governments and international organizations often overlook the significant contributions and vital perspectives of women and girls, thereby undermining effective security policies and peace-building initiatives. Human rights advocates and security experts are calling for more efforts to invest in women, implement gender-sensitive laws and policies and ensure that women are included at decision-making tables.
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Female circumcision is performed on young women around the world, but particularly in Africa, on cultural and religious grounds.

The News International newspaper claims to have recorded a dentist in Birmingham, Omar Sheikh Mohamed Addow, describing how the operation could be performed, including details on how the clitoris could be pierced and clamped.

Two female lawmakers, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said Sunday that the dearth of women Secret Service agents might have contributed to the scandal linking agency personnel to prostitutes in Colombia. And they credited a female Secret Service supervisor, Paula Reid, for bringing it to light.

Two female lawmakers, both of them members of oversight committees, said Sunday that the dearth of women Secret Serviceagents might have contributed to the scandal linking agency personnel to prostitutes in Colombia. And they credited a female supervisor in the agency for bringing it to light.

The lawmakers, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, were asked on the ABC program “This Week” about a report describing a female Secret Service supervisor, Paula Reid, who ordered the crackdown on agents working in Cartagena, Colombia, ahead of a visit by President Obama last weekend.

“She acted decisively, appropriately, and I can’t help but wonder if there’d been more women as part of that detail if this ever would have happened,” said Ms. Collins, ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

A report from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, accuses the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the largest umbrella group for nuns in the United States, of taking positions that undermine Roman Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting "certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."

An American archbishop was appointed to oversee reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which will include rewriting the group's statutes, reviewing all its plans and programs -- including approving speakers -- and ensuring the organization properly follows Catholic prayer and ritual.

The Leadership Conference, based in Silver Spring, Md,, represents about 57,000 religious sisters and offers programs ranging from leadership training for women's religious orders to advocacy on social justice issues. Representatives of the Leadership Conference did not respond to requests for comment.

The report from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the organization faced a "grave" doctrinal crisis, in which issues of "crucial importance" to the church, such as abortion and euthanasia, have been ignored. Vatican officials also castigated the group for making some public statements that "disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops," who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals."

Church officials did not cite a specific example of those public statements, but said the reform would include a review of ties between the Leadership Conference and NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby. NETWORK played a key role in supporting the Obama administration's health care overhaul despite the bishops' objections that the bill would provide government funding for abortion. The Leadership Conference disagreed with the bishops' analysis of the law and also supported President Barack Obama's plan.

Asia Society and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy deliver “Rising to the Top?”, a study that highlights the current socio-economic landscape for women in China and the region. The report discusses gender gap issues and presents policy recommendations to ease gender inequality.

The Globe and Mail article discusses the International Football Association Board's unanimous recommendation to rescind the hijab ban first introduced by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association in 2007.

This rule had resulted in the banning of individual female players in FIFA-sanctioned games – including the forfeit of an Olympic qualifying match by the Iranian women’s team. Some (the Quebec Soccer Federation, for instance) used the FIFA edict as a pretext to ban the hijab from the soccer field for non-FIFA events.

The ban reversal followed intense lobbying by Jordan’s Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, a FIFA vice-president, who sought to allay safety concerns by working with Cindy van den Bremen, a Dutch designer of sports-safe hijabs, for a dozen years. Montrealer Elham Seyed Javad (who created a hijab for female martial arts athletes in 2008) has also submitted a design for consideration by FIFA. Muslim women, for whom soccer is a passion, welcomed the IFAB decision. After all, the “beautiful game” is the most universal of sports, encompassing cultures and nations.

Those who fought to have FIFA include hijab-clad players should also lobby Saudi Arabia to allow women to be part of its Olympic national team. Last week, the Saudis confirmed their opposition to sending Saudi women to the London Games. This, despite the Olympic Charter: “Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, sex or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.”

Sports Illustrated reports that the International Olympic Committee is stilltalking to Saudi Arabia about sending women to the London Games, despite a report that the conservative Muslim country's national Olympic committee resists the idea.

Editorial:

From Sports Illustrated:

IOC President Jacques Rogge also said at a news conference on Sunday that the head of Syria's Olympic committee has been invited to the summer games, but that it will be up to Britain to decide whether to admit him.

Rogge's comments came 10 days after a Saudi newspaper reported that national Olympic committee President Prince Nawaf does "not approve" of sending female athletes.

"We're still discussing [this] with our colleague on the Saudi national Olympic committee. This is an ongoing discussion, but it is a bit too soon to come to conclusions," Rogge said.

Saudi Arabia is one of three countries that have never included women on their Olympic teams, along with Qatar and Brunei. The IOC has been hopeful that all three would send female representatives to London, marking the first time for every competing nation.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said last month that officials of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad who are on a European Union travel-ban list would be blocked from attending the July 27-Aug. 12 London games.

Millions of women each year experience unintended pregnancies, and millions more have unmet need for family planning. One of the persistent gaps in knowledge is the role of gender barriers that women face in defining and achieving their reproductive intentions. This paper provides a gender analysis of women’s demand for reproductive control. This analysis illuminates how the social construction of gender affects fertility preferences, unmet need, and the barriers that women face to using contraception and safe abortion. It also helps to bridge important dichotomies in the population, family planning, and reproductive health fields.

Once primarily male veteran problems, homelessness and economic struggles are escalating among female veterans, whose numbers have grown during the past decade of U.S. wars while resources for them haven't kept up. The population of female veterans without permanent shelter has more than doubled in the last half-dozen years and may continue climbing now that the Iraq war has ended, sending women home with the same stresses as their male counterparts — plus some gender-specific ones that make them more susceptible to homelessness.

The problem, a hurdle to the Obama administration's stated goal of ending veterans' homelessness by 2015, is exacerbated by a shortage of temporary housing specifically designed to be safe and welcoming to women or mothers with children. The spike comes even as the overall homeless veteran population has gone down, dropping by nearly 12 percent to about 67,500 between January 2010 and January 2011, officials say.

UN report Progress of the World’s Women outlines ten recommendations to make justice systems work for women. They are proven and achievable and, if implemented, they hold enormous potential to increase women’s access to justice and advance gender equality.

Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Watan reported Thursday that Saudi Olympic Committee President Prince Nawaf does "not approve" of sending female athletes to the London Games. But he left room for Saudi women to possibly compete on their own outside the official delegation, a plan that may not satisfy demands by the International Olympic Committee.

A similar arrangement was made at the Youth Olympics in 2010 for Saudi equestrian competitor Dalma Rushdi Malhas. She won a bronze medal in show jumping.

"I do not approve of Saudi female participation in the Olympics at the moment," Nawaf was quoted as saying by the newspaper.Officials at the Saudi Olympic Committee could not be reached for comment.

The IOC has been in talks with the Saudis about sending women to London.